The Best Strategies and Hacks for Uber Quest

Harry here. Today, RSG contributor Ezra Dubroff takes a look at the Uber Quest program and shares his best tips and tricks for maximizing your income while doing it!

The New York Times recently reported on “How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks’ To Push Its Drivers’ Buttons.” Some of the techniques detailed in the Times’ report included Uber’s use of video game-like motivational tools, used to encourage drivers to behave in very specific ways. For example, a graphic showing an earnings goal when a driver attempts to go offline, encouraging that driver to stay online and reach a specific earnings threshold.

But there’s more… if you’re an Uber driver in a larger market, you may have noticed some features in your app called Quest and Boost.

The first time I saw those words, I immediately had a flashback to the early 90s, playing games like Contra on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. And anyone who’s played Contra knows about the secret code to get 30 extra lives, right? We’ll get back to that later

Those video game buzzwords, “Quest” and “Boost,” are incentives for Uber drivers that can translate to real money and increased earnings, so as a driver, I thought it would be a good idea to figure out exactly how to take advantage of these opportunities and earn some extra cash.So today we’ll be diving in and exploring Uber Quest: what it is, how it works and how to use it to maximize your rideshare earnings.

Over my three-plus years as an Uber driver, I’ve seen various incentive offers from the company but this was the one that really caught my attention. This was in March, 2016, as Uber was just beginning to experiment with these types of weekly incentives in Los Angeles. Wow! $500 extra just for completing 75 rides? This offer created quite a buzz here in the L.A. Uber driver community, as folks were scrambling to complete the required trips and cash in.

Soon enough, these types of incentives were being offered to drivers on a regular basis in Los Angeles. By the fall of 2016, they were even given catchy names (Quest, Boost) and integrated into the driver app to allow a driver to track his or her progress in real time. The Quest payouts also decreased considerably from the initial $500 you see above.

What Is Uber Quest?

Uber Quest is a driver incentive that pays a reward when a driver completes a certain number of trips in a certain time period. In the example below, a $60 reward is offered for completing 15 trips and meeting certain other requirements.

Which Drivers Receive Quest Offers?

Like many driver promotions and incentives, Quest is offered primarily in larger Uber markets, where the demand for rides is strong and rideshare companies are constantly competing for drivers’ services. If you live in a city with Quest, you should automatically see any available incentive offers displayed in your driver app. Simply tap “Earnings” from the main menu and then click on “Promotions” to see what’s available.If you’re a driver in a smaller market, incentives like Quest might not be available to you, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to maximize your earnings. Check out this Rideshare Guy podcast on how to be successful driving in a small market, even without incentives.

How Do The Quest Offers Work?

While Uber doesn’t release information on exactly how they target which drivers with which Quest offers, it seems the offers are based on a blend of market demand and previous driver behavior.

For example, with New Year’s Eve coming up, I received a Quest offer of a $125 reward for completing 12 trips. Such a large reward was obviously tied to the increased demand for rides on NYE after midnight.

But there appears to be more to the system that assigns these offers. After comparing the Quest incentives in my app with other drivers in my city, I realized that we were all being offered different bonuses, most likely based on how many trips we’d completed in previous weeks and other behaviors in the driver app. I received an offer of 20 rides for a $80 bonus, while another driver was offered a $50 bonus for completing 18 trips. Same city, same weekend, different drivers, different offers… Hmmm….And just like Quest incentives vary from one driver to the next, they also vary based on the city you drive in. For example, here in LA, I’ve seen Quest bonuses as low as $25, while drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area are regularly extended Quest incentives that can top $400-$500 per week! Here are a couple recent bonus offers that Christian received in the Bay Area during the last week of March 2017. Notice that there are 2 quests for the week: one for $235 and one for $185 ($420 total).

What Are The Requirements?

When it comes to driving for Uber, it’s always a good idea to look at the fine print. The requirements to qualify for Quest incentives here in Los Angeles are as follows. Keep in mind that these requirements may vary slightly depending on your market.

Time period: Each Quest incentive will have a specific time period in which the required trips must be completed. Normally each week there will be an incentive period for weekdays that goes from 4 AM Monday to 4 AM Friday. Come the weekend, there’s then a second incentive period from 4 AM Friday to 4 AM Monday. I usually receive an email from Uber the night before the incentive period starts, urging me to check my app for the latest offers.Completion Rate: A 25% completion rate is required. This means that I must complete at least 25% of the trip requests I accept. This requirement should be easy for most drivers to meet.Acceptance Rate: An 80% acceptance rate is also required. So out of all of the Uber requests sent to my phone while I’m online, I must accept 80% in order to qualify. This requirement can be a little trickier to meet. I might not want to accept a request if the pickup is far away, the passenger rating is low or the Surge or Boost multiplier is not as high as I’d like. But if I want to cash in on the Quest bonus, I better be sure to keep my acceptance rating above the required threshold.Starting Point: For my Quest offers, all trips must being in Los Angeles County. Check your app for required starting points in your market.Trip Types: Here in Los Angeles, many types of trips qualify for Quest, including UberX, UberPOOL and even UberEATS. This is great for drivers because it gives us options to earn incentives while completing a variety of types of trips. I can complete rides during rush hour and food deliveries during meal times, with each trip counting toward my total. And while UberPOOL tends to be a pain point with drivers, the good news is that each Pool pickup counts to your Quest total. So an UberPOOL ride with 3 pickups and dropoffs would count as 3 trips when it comes to reaching your goal.Excluded From Quest: Destination trips, rider cancellations and driver cancellations do NOT count towards Quest promotions. You can still complete destination trips and also earn cancellation fees, but those things will not increase your trip total in terms of Quest.

Uber Quest Strategies

When it comes to thinking of Uber Quest strategies, the first things I’m going to look at are the overall bonus amount and the bonus per ride. Giving 20 rides for $20 promo might not motivate me to get on the road, but 20 trips for $80 is a bit more enticing. And sometimes Quest offers include a second threshold to unlock a larger bonus (see example below). For a full-time driver who’s going to complete 55 trips anyway, it’s probably worth it to be sure to meet all the requirements and take home the extra $100.

One strategy I’ve had success with is pursuing both Quest and Boost promotions simultaneously. For example, on New Years’ Eve, I was able to earn Boost fares as high as 3.5x, while also getting an additional $10+ per ride from Quest for the 12 trips I completed.

Another strategy I like to use is focusing on UberEATS trips while going after a Quest goal. UberEATS trips work great with Quest for a number of reasons: while the distance and time of an Uber passenger ride can be unpredictable, I find that most UberEATS trips are only a few miles and can usually be completed in 30 minutes or less. This means I can generally reach my Quest incentives quicker and more predictably by delivering for UberEATS instead of driving for UberX.

Additionally, since most UberEATS trips are short, this allows me to easily stay in a Boost zone and thus pursue BOTH Quest and Boost promotions simultaneously. A ride may pull me far away from my Boost zones, but a food delivery generally will not. This allows me to work most efficiently in unlocking the bonus and maximizing my earnings per ride at the same time.

This is actually one of the hidden benefits of doing delivery in general. Delivery companies like Caviar tend to operate in a smaller area and this keeps the miles off of your car. When you end up breaking that down by the total dollars earned per mile driven on a given day, the earnings often beat out UberX since you don’t end up with long trips that force you to drive unpaid miles.

Uber Quest Hacks

Remember when I mentioned the video game codes to get extra lives? Well, I’ve tried to apply that same type of thinking to come up with some Uber Quest hacks.

On a recent Sunday, I was going after a 20 trip for $80 Quest incentive. Over that weekend, I had given some rides, completed some deliveries, but had also ignored some requests. As mentioned earlier, these ignored requests included low-rated passengers, faraway pickups and requests without Boost or Surge multipliers.So now it was Sunday night and I had completed my required trips but was just short of the required acceptance rate. I didn’t want to continue giving rides because it was late, requests were slow to come in and I really wanted to get home and sleep. But I also didn’t want to miss out on the $80 that I was so close to earning.

So I figured out a way to get the $80 WITHOUT giving any additional rides. I decided that I’d remain online and accept the next request I received. A few minutes later a request came in and I tapped the screen to accept it. But instead of completing the ride, I cancelled it. Wait, what?? Yep, because I had accepted the request, my acceptance rate now jumped above the 80% threshold and unlocked the $80 bonus for me. BOOM! And because I then cancelled the trip, my completion rating dropped, but not enough to disqualify me from the bonus. I got my bonus and didn’t even have to complete an additional trip.

Just keep in mind that while cancellations can raise your acceptance rate in cases like this, this strategy should be used carefully since Uber can penalize and even deactivate drivers for canceling too many rides. You’ll know if you’re canceling too much if Uber contacts you with a warning.

You can also turn on destination filter in this situation and, while those rides won’t count towards your trip incentives, they will increase your Acceptance Rate and Cancellation Rate, so take advantage while this lasts.One of the most valuable things I’ve learned from my experience as an Uber driver is the importance of understanding how I’m paid and how I can maximize my earnings. Quest is one of many tools that Uber offers that allows me to earn some extra cash while completing rides. So if you’re in a market where Quest is offered, be sure to evaluate the incentives on a regular basis, determine if they’re worth pursuing, create a plan and then go out and execute!

Readers, have you noticed Uber Quest and Boost on your app? What strategies do you use to maximize your earnings with Quest and Boost?

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Ezra Dubroff is a rideshare veteran living in Los Angeles, CA. With thousands of trips and deliveries completed since 2013, he’s been able to leverage his experiences to help other drivers make informed decisions about working in this industry. You can find him on YouTube and at driveuber.com.

Two thoughts after reading this:
1) I’ve often thought that they just totally mess with your mind… when I set a destination toward home, suddenly the area I’m heading to has a surge… but it’s this elusive surge that you never quite get to… but it’s as if it’s trying to entice you to stay online and maybe catch it…
2) Has anyone else noticed that with the newest update, it no longer shows the rate when a ride comes up? Before, when a ride would show up, it would tell you the rider’s rating, how far they are in time/distance and it would say UberX or Pool and it would show the surge 1.6 or whatever.. I’m not seeing that anymore, anyone else?

I have noticed some odd things with surge on Lyft too! They turn on the surge long enough to get people to that area and then when you get there, they turn it off and you don’t get paid for the surge rate. A good reason to not chase the surge unless you are already sitting there, but even then, who knows if you’ll get a request.

Sergio

Surges are sugar to ants. You can call them fake or not but they’re definitely manipulated. Uber/Lyft has enough data to anticipate demand and create a surge to attract drivers to the area before the actual demand hits. Don’t you wonder, sometimes you’d be sitting in the middle of a surge zone and not get any requests? It’s because there is no actual demand it’s to attract all the base fare slaves to the area.

john

1) The Surge goes away because the drivers show up in the area to catch the surge. This is why I don’t fall for the game and don’t drive to the surge. The only exception is if I’m literally on the border of it and then I’ll drive maybe a mile to get closer to the center of it but otherwise I’m not taking the bait.
2) When I’m in the middle of a surge I don’t wonder where the requests aren’t coming quickly because I realize the riders aren’t all clueless. Many of them are waiting for the price to come down before they pull the trigger.

Sergio

Good for you, you’ve figured it out that most surges are a mirage. Unfortunately, a lot of ants can’t resist it, as long as they’re willing to drive for base to complete these silly quests, they’re killing the surge. Don’t know where you’re based but In Los Angeles surge is dead.

john

Are you one of the “ants” that kills the surge or is that just everyone else?

Sergio

No surge=No drive for me, haven’t driven for 5 weeks since the surge died, waiting for a fat 20 for 120 quest to start the engine

Ezra @ Rideshare Genius

I’ve been studying surges for 3+ years but can’t say for sure I’ve ever seen a “fake” surge. It used to be a lot easier to compare driver and passenger apps. It would say the exact amount in both apps. Now they’ve made it way more complex and hidden.

I’ll have to look for a surge request and see if it shows the multiplier. I’ll get back to you on that! 🙂

john

Here in San Diego the Uber app change for me is a good thing since it now shows on the map where the driver actually is located, along with miles to pick up and estimated time to pick up. It also continues to show the rider rating as well as any surge (I don’t get a lot of surge rides but I’ve seen it a few times on the new screen) so I’m not seeing the issue you describe.

Derek J Dambrosio

Uber loves to play games with drivers instead of simply paying drivers a living wage, they make you go on a quest to see if you can pay your rent this month! Here is a crazy idea, Instead of a giving drivers a “Boost” how about you give them “Health Insurance”, after all drivers only have 1 life.

They say you can be your own boss, but they play games with drivers to get them to work where they want and when they want. Wake up dummies, these companies are nothing without their driver’s bit they treat you like kids.

Amen! Every time Lyft sends out one of those texts that says something ridiculous like “Give 70 rides between Thursday afternoon and Monday morning and we’ll give you $50” or some other ridiculously low number, I roll my eyes. That’s barely enough money to cover the gas for all those rides! I disagree with the “driving more = more money” strategy. The good news about these offers is that it pulls people away from the areas in town that are profitable and there is more demand for those of us who aren’t chasing these ridiculous quests.

Ezra @ Rideshare Genius

Derek, I say if Uber wants to play games, we should find the cheat codes to level the playing field! And though I don’t see it happening anytime soon (or ever), a “Quest” goal in order to get health insurance is an easy solution to a problem that’s only going to get worse. But like you said, the prices are too low to support benefits.

john

“Wake up dummies” … “they treat you like kids” … “You take all the risks and they enjoy the rewards”… “how about you give them “Health Insurance”,

If you’re a driver you’re part of the “they” “you” and “them” that you speak of.

“We have the power”

So now its “we” lol? Do we though? This is what will be coming to a head. Will it get to a point where Uber/Lyft has just undercut the drivers so much that they have to stop and maybe even give back a bit before the relationship is too strained? That is the big question along with what can the drivers really do?

I’ve been driving part-time for almost 3½ years so I’ve seen this turn from what was once a good full-time job option when I started to something now that I describe as still a good part-time job but not so great as a full time venture. They’ll continue to look to try to placate drivers in non-monetary ways like destination range and making the app work better (recent change to the uber app so I can actually see where the riders are located was a long time coming) and try to win points that way which is a joke because its how it should have been all along. They just aren’t going to give health care to what they consider to be non-employees! IMO they also aren’t going to be very interested in raising the mileage/time rates where the drivers get 75% of the increase and they only get 25%! They are going to continue to try to find inventive ways to charge the customer up front in ways that they get all the benefit but the driver doesn’t get a cut.

IMO it only changes when they think that they’ve squeezed as much as they can from the drivers; hopefully they realize they’ve hit the breaking point because I truly believe they’ve backed drivers to the river’s edge.

Gene Chamson

This is a very clever and sneaky way for Uber to increase control while cutting driver pay. Over time, the Quest offers get harder and harder to achieve, until one day you get an offer that is out of reach. When that happens, you’ll realize that unless you can increase your driving hours, your pay has effectively just been cut by 30% or more.

My suggested strategy: concentrate your driving hours toward achieving a Quest reward, and if the reward is out of reach or too low, don’t drive at all during that period. For example, last week I received an offer for $90 if I completed 35 trips between Mon-Thurs. I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to complete the 35 trips, and without the bonus, my hourly gross would drop from $25/hour to around $15/hour. So I didn’t drive at all during that period. This week, Uber enticed me with a better offer.

Ezra @ Rideshare Genius

Yes, always good to evaluate total earnings and factor in promotions. If Quest offer isn’t good, there is always Boost and ole’ fashioned Surge to help maximize earnings. And then you wouldn’t have to worry about acceptance rate. All depends on your market…

Sergio

The less you drive the better offers you get, I haven’t driven for a month, offers are getting better by the week, this week was 18 for 70 Monday-Thursday. Still haven’t started the engine, LOL

Ezra @ Rideshare Genius

I can’t say that’s been the case with me. If I haven’t driven for Uber in a while, I often get an 18 trips for $35 Quest offer, which is one of the lowest I’ve seen.

Sergio

Not sure where you’re based but in Los Angeles I’ve seen it with couple of friends of mine, they drive even less than me and get better quests than me. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that will end as well because a lot of Uber drivers will take the 18 for 35 and saturate an already crowded market. I hope you didn’t take that quest, lol.

Sergio

The less you drive the better offers you’ll get. If they stopped subsidizing rides via quests, boosts and new driver sign up bonuses and just increase the rates per mile/minute, they would be profitable so will the drivers.

boxdin

So true, I am part time, will not do tons of runs to qualify for any of lyft/uber. I need cents per mile and per minute. Nothing else means anything to me. Uber took away $1.00 per mile in abq market, now give us some of it back.

Hacking Rideshare

I drive UberX and UberXL and have not done Uber Eats yet. (I drive a Honda Pilot and UberEats might not be a good fit for a small SUV)

I have been able to get Quest minimums by driving in college and University areas. It is not quite as fail safe as Uber Eats keeping you in a small radius but college students tend to take a lot of short trips near campus. The dorms to the frat party or to the local bar. You may only get minimum rides but you ensure your distance between pick-ups is short, i.e. less gas and miles on your car, but the main focus is to get those completed rides and that bonus. 20 rides at the minimum payout of $2.40 = $48 but add in the bonus of $80 = $6.40 per ride. I have been able to 20 rides in three hours near college campuses and using the previous math equates to nearly $20/hr. Not bad for taking a bunch of short trips and not burning a lot of gas. And if you drive a hybrid and city trips conserve your gas even more. Your operating costs are even lower which improves your bottom line.

Ezra @ Rideshare Genius

Great strategy for hacking Quest!

Carlos Junior

Quick solution to all of these problems. Invest in bus pass, train , and or subway passes. Apply to your nearest community college and take a class that can better a skill you have already or learn something new. Example web design, create a new app for PHONE or whatever, handyman, paint what ever interest you. You don’t need to go to a University. Then you can really be your own boss instead if driving around the city expecting to get paid 40,000 a year with benefits. Come in you guys are just like the fast food workers demanding 15+ hour. You want more money show me something that says you are worth that!!! Best of luck to all 😉

Mark Schumaker

I don’t understand how it’s possible to have anything less than a 100% completion rate, minus perhaps the times you’ve canceled a ride. Is it possible to start a ride with a passenger in the car and then not complete the ride?

Ezra @ Rideshare Genius

Hey, Mark! From my experience, it seems like both rider and driver cancellations count against completion rating. So it’s pretty easy to keep it very close to 100%. It would take a lot of effort to get it under 25% 🙂

About

I'm Harry, the owner and founder of The Rideshare Guy Blog and Podcast. I used to be a full-time engineer but now I'm a rideshare blogger! I write about my experience driving for Uber, Lyft, and other services and my goal is to help drivers earn more money by working smarter, not harder. Read More…

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